BOOK REVIEW: Informational Books: We are the Ship by Kadir Nelson

In the late turn of the 20th
century, racial segregation was still prevalent in the United States. In order
to play professional baseball, African American athletes formed their own teams
and leagues.With the help of Rube
Foster, the Negro National League was formed. By playing harder and more
difficult games, these players honed their skills as ball players and went on
to entertain people across America and Cuba.They barnstormed major teams, played winter ball in other countries, and
even formed their own World Series.Their
drive to be the best at the sport they loved put players like Hank Aaron and
Jackie Robinson in the spot-light to break the color line and re-open Major
League Baseball to African American players.

3.CRITICAL ANALYSIS

The history of Negro League
Baseball is not a pretty one, but it is one that deserves to be told.Kadir Nelson uses his narrative as if a
player is walking you straight through the hardships to the Major Leagues.From being run out of major clubs and even
towns through forming their own teams, leagues, and even World Series, Nelson’s
narrator radiates hope and a dogged perseverance displayed by so many of the
players he talks about.The story is
heart-breaking, but has a happy ending.However, it’s the paintings included in the book that keep you turning
the pages.Each is lovingly brushed and
at times it seems like the players themselves are looking right at the reader
as you share in their little victories.The two page spread of the first Negro World Series is carefully
recreated right down to the names, giving a vitality to the players and
coaches.Nelson provides careful
research while still adding in some of the feelings that must have gone through
each of the players when only a select few of the players made it into the farm
teams and major leagues of baseball.He
even includes a passage on why he chose to narrate the book through a first
person rather than just give the facts of the story, which helps this to read
more like listening to your grandfather’s tales than a history lesson.

4.REVIEW EXCERPT(S)

2009
SIBERT MEDAL

2009
CORETTA SCOTT KING AWARD FOR AUTHORS

From SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL – "The
history of the Leagues echoes the social and political struggles of black
America during the first half of the 20th century. There were scores of
ballplayers who never became as famous as Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and were almost
lost in obscurity because of segregation—and Nelson recreates their history
here."

From BOOKLIST -- "The
narrative showcases the pride and comradery of the Negro Leagues, celebrates
triumphing on one’s own terms and embracing adversity, even as it clearly shows
the “us” and “them” mentality bred by segregation. If the story is the pitch,
though, it’s the artwork that blasts the book into the stands. Nelson often
works from a straight-on vantage point, as if the players took time out of the
action to peer at the viewer from history, eyes leveled and challenging, before
turning back to the field of play."